


The Way You See The World

by superheroresin



Series: Something Wild Calls You Home [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Cat Bucky Barnes, Cat Ears, Cat/Human Hybrids, Drabble, Drabble Collection, M/M, Steve Rogers is Not Captain America
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-11
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-08-21 22:14:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16585235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superheroresin/pseuds/superheroresin
Summary: A series of shorts featuring snow leopard Bucky from Something Wild Calls You Home. These are standalone one-shots that take place in and around the events of Something Wild Calls You Home.





	1. Bucky vs. Cucumber

“I don’t know, Buck…” Steve doesn’t usually give up on a political debate so easily, and he’s particularly skeptical about the RNS’s motivations for sabotaging the ESPO pipeline, but he’s distracted.

“I think that’s what it all boils down to: pride.” Bucky continues walking up the stairs just ahead of him, tail swinging back and forth right in front of Steve’s face. Bucky isn’t doing it on purpose, he’s just excited by the latest news coming out of Russia. “Remember when they blew up the convoy headed to Kiev? Nothing but chickens. The just did it because they thought it made Russia look weak, allowing the US to provide thousands of chickens to Kiev’s farms.”

“Oh,” Steve says, because he does remember the convoy bombing, but he’s also watching that sleek, spotted tail swish, swish, swishing in front of him. It’s hypnotizing, like watching a metronome. “I still think there’s more strategy behind it than that.”

They are each carrying a brown paper bag of groceries from Trader Joe’s, since Steve finally broke down and agreed to cook his maple-glazed salmon rather than order takeout. Bucky is in the mood for something sweet, and he insisted the French restaurant that delivers doesn’t ‘do it right.’ Really, the casual intimacy of Bucky’s words caused a twinge of happiness in Steve’s chest and he was excited to cook for his hungry cat. It’s nice to have such a domestic plan for the evening, given everything going on.

“That would imply the RNS is a lot more organized than our current intelligence suggests,” Bucky grumbles, unsatisfied with Steve’s stubborn argument. Steve can’t seem to think of anything else to back up his position though, since all he wants to do is put this stupid bag of fish down and tuck his fingers into Bucky’s soft fur. Why did they even start discussing politics to begin with? That never leads to anything fun. “If they were that organized, they probably would have succeeded in the attack on the pipeline.”

“I just want to sink my teeth in your ass,” Steve sighs, and Bucky abruptly stops on the stairs before he turns around with open shock painted across his face as his eyes grow larger and larger.

Wrestling both themselves and the bag of groceries up the stairs while they struggle to keep their hands off each other is no small feat, but they manage. Steve flings open his door and Bucky slams it shut, and the bags are haphazardly dropped on the counter as soon as Steve plants Bucky on cool granite. “Shit, Steve,” Bucky breathes into his mouth, in the brief breaks between Steve’s attempts to taste every single one of his barbs. “Mmm, more!”

Steve shoves him back, yanks up his shirt and suckles his left nipple. He loves feeling it grow rigid between his lips, can taste the salt and inhales Bucky’s delicious graham cracker scent. Steve rakes his fingers down Bucky’s back, dips below the waistband of his shorts and grabs entire handfuls of Bucky’s ass. Steve is hard as a rock, the edge of the counter pressing uncomfortably against his fly, and for a moment can’t decide what he wants more; getting his mouth on Bucky’s cock or just fucking him on the spot.

He figures he’d let Bucky decide, and reaches back to press on the root of his tail. “Fuck!” Bucky cries out, his hips spasming back, and his tail arcs just enough to knock both bags of groceries over. Bucky ignores it, latches onto Steve’s neck with his teeth, and for a hot, wet second, Steve’s mind completely blanks, lost in the sensation of the sharp little bite.

Then Steve sees the eggs slip out of the toppled bag. “Wait! Shit!” Steve lunges forward, arms wildly scrambling past Bucky to catch hold of them before they roll off the counter. Bucky just hangs on, trapped between Steve and the counter. “Shit, shit!” Steve gasps, grabs the carton with two fingers, and blows out a sigh right in Bucky’s chest. “That was close.”

Then both bags of groceries topple right over the edge and crash onto the floor.

Bucky winces, not daring to look behind him, ears folded down at the sound of the produce crunching under the weight of the glass maple syrup, and the packages of fresh salmon slapping against the hardwood floor. A head of lettuce for the salad rolls out, along with a jar of peaches and a tub of ice cream. It takes a surprisingly long time for everything to settle.

“Fuck.” Steve deadpans, then raises an accusatory eyebrow right at Bucky’s tail.

“Don’t you dare,” Bucky warns him, picking it up off the counter and pulling it protectively into his lap.

Steve blows out a laugh, then releases his death grip on the egg cartons. “Let’s rescue your dinner.”

Bucky rolls his eyes, bored with that idea but apparently on board. He hops off the counter and scoops up the lettuce while Steve rights the paper bags. “Wow, that loaf of bread made it all the way into the hall,” he says, quietly impressed, and heads past the sofa to rescue the plastic bag of sliced whole wheat. Steve turns back after settling most of everything back on the counter — because that’s what counters are _actually_ for — and spots the cucumber that had rolled halfway under the side table next to the couch.

“Everything okay?” Bucky says, heading back towards him.

“Nothing broke,” Steve shrugs. “Oh, behind you,” he says, since Bucky didn’t see it.

“Hm?” Bucky glances down and then Steve’s peaceful evening erupts into chaos.

Bucky shouts, his whole body spiraling six feet directly up in the air. Steve’s stomach plummets to his feet and he launches himself backward shouting, “Who’s there!” for some reason. He flings his arm out across the refrigerator, like he’s trying to protect it, and Bucky comes back down on the back of the couch before he springs over the coffee table and scrabbles to stop himself before obliterating the television. He winds up on all fours, claws gouging deep ruts in the floor, ears laid back, tail straight up behind him and poofier than Steve has ever seen.

Steve is gasping through his heart attack, still clinging onto the refrigerator. “Fuck! What the! Fucking! And what!”

“What was that!” Bucky snarls, gnashing his teeth.

Steve feels dizzy, and he’s worried he may actually have had a small heart attack. He unclamps his grip on the edge of the fridge and staggers forward. “What was what!”

“That— ” Bucky growls. “That _thing_!”

Steve’s legs feel like water. Did he pee a little? “Oh my fucking god,” he gasps. “Bucky it’s just the cucumber.” He walks over to where the bread landed, which has been stomped into a sack of sad crumbs, and picks up the cucumber, waving it at the scaredy cat cowering by the window. “For the salad?”

Bucky sits down hard, yanks his claws from the wooden floor. His eyes grow wider and wider as his face grows redder and redder.

“...Oh.”

* * *

Incredible snow leopard Bucky by none other than [Babs Tarr](https://resinonao3.tumblr.com/post/178165067193/resinonao3-a-super-special-commission-of-bucky)! Tough guy had no idea what that cucumber had in store for him...

 


	2. Bucky vs. The Christmas Tree

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I posted this a bit earlier than I intended, but I've been sick with the flu all week and needed something to cheer myself up with. What better way than sharing a holiday short about my two favorite boys? :) Hope you enjoy!

It’s been a rough year.

On top of fighting for justice, overthrowing the President of the United States, and revealing a new species of sentient beings on planet Earth that had been manipulating the world’s politics since the beginning of time, it is now the holiday season, and Steve is in a damn bad mood from how irreparably different his life had become.

On top of that, they had been fighting for the very first time. After Bucky’s heat had finally passed, things seemed to return to normal. Bucky had been affectionate in new, exciting ways and the fondness between them had seemed endless. Then some things started changing, so small at first Steve barely noticed. A snide remark there, a locked door here. It was mostly passive, but it quickly turned into something passive aggressive, and then after a few days it was just plain _aggressive_ aggressive.

Steve isn’t quite sure what he had done wrong, other than pack a two hundred pound hunting cat into a tiny Brooklyn apartment with nothing to keep him occupied as Steve goes to work.

Bucky starts prowling around the apartment, tail slicing dangerously back and forth, glaring at the corners of the room as if they were to blame for the apartment being so small. Steve tries to get him to go out, to try some new things, maybe even get a hobby. Bucky just unreasonably states that hobbies are for humans, and says ‘humans’ with a sneer that hurts Steve’s feelings more than it used to. Maybe Bucky is depressed, like Steve is, and depression is just a bad combination with predatory instincts.

The last straw is the rat.

Steve comes home late from the clinic again. Exhaustion feels as if it’s settled into his bones, and all he has the strength for is for an evening on the sofa. Not to worry about politics, or the seemingly hopeless humanitarian situation the entire world is in, attempting to reintegrate the independent cats into society. It isn’t just a matter of being tired, even though he is bone weary. It’s a matter of his heart being overfull of sympathy for all concerned. He thinks if he shed one more tear for another orphan kitten, beat his head against one more wall about families being split apart, he would simply run out of energy for it all and drop dead on the spot.

He wishes he could plug his soul into his cell phone charger, to see if that could help.

“Hey Buck,” he says, worried if he was going to start a fight as soon as he walks in the front door. “‘m home.”

“Steve!” Bucky shoots out from around the corner of the hallway, carrying something in his hands. “I caught it!”

“What?” Steve starts, his brain sluggishly trying to decipher Bucky’s energy and whatever is dangling from— _it was a fucking rat!_

“Thought he was real clever,” Bucky snickers, and shakes the carcass by the tail.

A scream bursts unbidden out of Steve’s chest and he staggers backwards into the front door. Whatever he brought home (he couldn’t recall for the life of him—his briefcase? Groceries? His courage?) flies out of his grip and clatters onto the floor.

Bucky looks down at Steve’s pitched fit and frowns. “You okay?” He is still holding the dead rat up by the tail.

“What the _fuck,_ Bucky!” Steve cries out.

“I… caught the rat that’s been getting into our cereal cabinet,” Bucky explains slowly, his voice going a bit quiet around the edges, losing all the pride and confidence he had when he came zooming around the corner to show off his kill.

“I can see that! Why the _hell_ do you still have it? Get rid of it!”

“Yeah of course,” Bucky says, and walks over to the kitchen trash bin. “I was going to throw it away. I just…” he trailed off and shrugs.

“Just what? Just wanted to get me to lose my appetite? So I wouldn’t bother you anymore about going out for dinner?”

Bucky looks up with a dark frown. “Don’t you fucking dare, Steve. I just thought I’d show you. I don’t know why. It was stupid. I shouldn’t have kept it.”

“Goddamn right you shouldn’t have!”

“But you don’t have to be an asshole about it!”

“Bucky, who the fuck would—How did you even kill that thing?”

“I just broke its neck,” Bucky exclaims. “Nothing messy!”

“Oh, no.” Steve feels faint. He puts his hand up to his forehead. “Jesus I hope you didn’t use your mouth.”

Bucky’s ears flick innocently to the side and his eyebrows go up.

“Oh, shit!” Steve hurtles through the apartment into the bathroom. He is going to be sick.

He needs a larger apartment. One without rats for Bucky to hunt down and kill with his fucking teeth, like an animal.

The thought swirls all the pent up tension and guilt from their hopeless crusade in humanoid rights. From the depths of his conscious rises up the sense that his relationship with Bucky is wrong, that he is crossing an unnatural boundary into some deviant sex acts with a non-human species, trespassing on laws that go beyond countries and politics. He can’t do it anymore, can’t keep fighting against the tide, can’t keep repeating his mantra about equality and agency and love of felines when his very own beating heart had caught vermin in his mouth and kept it to show off, like some pet with a trophy dug up from the yard.

Steve drops to his knees and vomits into the toilet. His whole body seizes up and he dry heaves when there was nothing left. Afterwards, he sits there for a few minutes, catching his breath, one hand braced against the bowl while the other clasps the flusher handle. Finally, his body gives out. He sits down on his hip, a little too hard and his keys dig into the soft flesh there, but the pain barely registers. He relaxes against the toilet tank, lazily pulls the handle. It’s not as if he no longer cares, but his mind had popped a cork on his pent up anxiety and he no longer has the energy to feel it. It leaves him feeling fuzzy and empty, a sting of something freshly removed, like a splinter.

Steve needs a nap, or a walk, or both.

When Steve finally gathers the nerve to leave, he finds Bucky sitting at the kitchen counter. A glass of sparkling water and a small plate of orange slices are sitting on the counter top. He pushes both towards Steve when he passes through, on his way to the front door. “Steve, I’m sorr—”

“Don’t,” Steve interrupts, holding up a hand. He sees the peace offering on the counter between them, desperately wants to take a sip of the cool refreshing water, and let the oranges burn away the taste of vomit in his mouth. “Don’t apologize. I get it. I shouldn’t have shouted, and you…” Steve sighs. “You were just being a cat. I think I need a walk so… Maybe I’ll have this when I get back.”

Bucky swallows so hard Steve can hear his throat click, but doesn’t move to stop him when he walks out the front door. Steve just needs to be away from him, just for a little while, to clear his head and draw in some energy from the swirling snow outside. He walks down their block and immediately heads downtown, following the numbered streets up and up until the lights get brighter and the sidewalks more crowded.

Steve stops in his tracks when he smells pine. He turns away from staring at the sidewalk, at his shoes in their stubborn stride away from home and his confused lover, and finds himself in front of a Christmas tree lot.

Christmas feels so superficial in the light of everything going on that Steve had barely registered how close it was. The government in shambles, the entire world stunned by the latest events, the species on the planet needing to find new ways to work together. Christmas is something painfully meaningless in the face of all that truth. He catches the scent again, stronger this time, and is transported back to the frigid mornings in his mother’s house where the whole family had celebrated the season.

In general, Rogers family events were chaotic at best and warzones at worst, with rarely anything in between. Christmas had always been shockingly organized, in comparison. The youngest family member would be assigned to hand out gifts. With so much family there at once, everyone patiently waited their turn while politely digging out treats from their stockings to pass the time. After his parents divorced, his father sold the cabin and Christmases were never quite the same. It didn’t matter though, since they still maintained the tradition of stockings first, youngest on distribution, and generally ordered exchanges no matter how divided or small the gatherings got.

He wondered if he’d even see his mother this year, and suddenly his heart shoves all that damn sympathy and bitterness for cats aside and makes room for himself. He is _depressed_ , he misses his family, and he wants to celebrate Christmas. God _damn_ it.

“Can’t do that without a tree,” he tells himself, because apparently talking to himself makes the conviction real. The trees are all great looking, healthy and full with thick needles the color so green they almost look fake. It’s a surprise to see such fantastic trees remaining with only ten days left until Christmas, but maybe other people are feeling the same lack of holiday cheer that Steve does. He also doesn’t have any ornaments, so he selects a generic kit that in an organized box, where all the ornaments, tinsel and matching lights are silver and blue. He doesn’t mind how uniform it looks. It would be a nice, organized Christmas tree, just like it should be.

It isn’t easy carrying it home, but if his huge shoulders are good for something it’s tossing a six foot tree over them. At least the man at the tree lot had tied up the branches with twine so he doesn’t have pine needles in his face as he makes his way back to his apartment. It had been a little bit exciting trying to get through the front door of his building, and even more exciting getting into the elevator, but eventually he is crashing through his front door and shoving his way inside.

“What’s that?” Bucky asks, his eyes huge and his ears forward with interest. He tilts his nose up to sniff the air, and inhales deeply when he catches the tree’s luscious scent. “Is that a Christmas tree?”

“Damn right,” Steve says, plopping it down in the corner of the living room. He doesn’t mean to sound so defensive, and feels bad when he sees Bucky lower his gaze and wrap his tail around his ankle at the sound of his voice. “Yup, a Christmas tree,” he says, this time with a wide grin. “Want to help me decorate it?”

“No,” Bucky says warily. He had joined Steve in the living room, but takes a step back after Steve pulls away the twine and the tree’s limbs unfurl in all their glory. “I don’t want to get in the way.”

“It’s the funnest part, though!” Steve says with a laugh. He’s already opening the box of decorations, making sure to check all the glass balls and then working the coil of lights out of their plastic keeper.

“The funnest part of what?” Bucky asks, and steps around to the side of the tree. He keeps his nose up and out as his head swivels around the unfamiliar addition to the apartment.

“Of having a tree,” Steve says, as a matter of course. “Haven’t you ever decorated one before?”

“No,” Bucky says. “It’s not really a cat holiday.”

Steve snorts. “Do cats even have _any_ holidays?”

Bucky shrugs. “I guess… I don’t really know. Probably not.”

Steve is just starting to loop the lights around the top of the tree when he finally realizes how awful he sounds. Of course Bucky doesn’t know about cat holidays. They would have been erased from history, along with their cultural identity, when Hydra had tried to wipe them out. Steve is getting zero points for sensitivity this holiday season.

“Sorry,” he says softly. He steps away from the tree, trailing the tail end of the lights, and thinks that if he could share his apartment, he could share this too. “We can make Christmas a cat holiday.”

Bucky looks at the end of the lights that Steve holds out to him between his fingers; an uneasy peace offering. “No thanks.”

“Fine,” Steve says, breaking the word off quickly so that it can’t drag his rising spirit back down to earth. He goes back to wrapping the lights around the tree. It’s more difficult than he remembers with one person, or maybe he had just never bothered to get such a huge tree before. It isn't exactly a remarkable specimen of pine, but maybe that’s why Steve had picked it. Leaving the truly fantastic ones for the rest of the New Yorkers when they realize Christmas is still worth celebrating. Once that is done he stands back and frowns. Somehow he had gotten it completely lopsided, so he dives back into the needles and fiddles with them all until they line up relatively evenly.

“Wouldn’t that be easier if you turned the lights on?” Bucky asks.

“Hey now,” Steve gusts out, twisting awkwardly between the tree and the back wall of the living room. “If you’re not decorating you don’t get to judge. Besides, it’s against tradition. The lights get turned on after all the other decorations are in place.

“Sounds dumb,” Bucky grumbles, and leaves the room.

“You’re dumb,” Steve retaliates, under his breath. He doesn’t know if Bucky hears him, but doesn’t care either way. So what if Steve is being childish? Bucky is being a wet blanket and could take it.

Finally, all the ornaments are in place, all the tinsel drapes attractively along the branches. The silver balls gleam in the living room lamp light and the blue ones look rich and full in a pleasant contrast. Steve stands back to admire his handiwork, and nods once, approving of himself. “Go me.”

“Is that it?” Bucky asks, and Steve’s whole body leaps up without his feet leaving the floor.

“Damn it,” he huffs out, and feels his face flush with embarrassment at being so startled. “I need to put a bell on you.”

“I’d still get the best of you, Rogers,” Bucky says with a sly smile and a wicked little wave of his tail.

Steve chuckles, feeling himself soften. It’s nice to see Bucky smiling about something that isn’t a dead rodent. “Okay, wait for it,” Steve says, and steps back around the tree to where the end of the light cord waits by the power outlet. “Tell me if you see any go out, okay?”

“Any of what go—Oh,” Bucky gasps.

“What is it? Did it work?” Steve extracts himself from the corner, and pushes himself away from the wall, brushing through a thicket of needles and scratchy branches. When he stands back he sees the tree awash in twinkling lights. The blue and white decorations blaze like a mountaintop covered in snow. The lights flare against the silver balls, and the blue ones bob brightly in a sea of green needles. The white tinsel cuts a snowy ledge down the length of it, and hanging off the bottom are a few icicles that came in the set. “Oh. Not bad,” Steve grins.

He does a double-take when he sees Bucky. Bucky’s eyes are the biggest he’d ever seen them, his ears lay back in wonderment as he takes in the sight of the Christmas tree. His tail is pressed flat behind him and his hands are raised, almost like he wanted to reach out and touch it from across the living room. “The Barnes’s used to have something like this,” Bucky says softly. “I remember. When I was little. We weren’t allowed in that room though. I just saw it through the window.”

Steve laughs. “Well, this one is yours. Come on and brush it! The needles are still soft.”

“Soft needles,” Bucky repeats, sounding more amazed that such a thing could exist. “Hmm.”

Steve steps away from the tree to give Bucky room to explore it. It really is too bad their apartment is so small. A tree like this deserves to be in a bay window or something. Bucky gently brushes his hands along the fluffy white band of tinsel that wraps around the whole tree, his tail seeking up the side of it like it has a curiosity all its own. He pokes at the needles, finding that Steve hadn’t lied. They are still soft, and feel like brushing against fresh spring grass.

Steve suddenly feels nervous when Bucky drops down to all fours. He swallows before speaking, worried that he might break the peaceful moment. “Pretty great huh?”

Bucky doesn’t answer, and instead works his way between the tree and the wall so he can see the back of it, where it’s wedged in the corner. Steve hadn’t bothered to put many ornaments back there, but it doesn’t make much difference to him if Bucky is curious.

Then he sees the whole thing shake.

“Careful, Buck,” Steve says. All the little glass ornaments sing when the tree shifts, shaking against the metal hooks that hold them to the branches. “Okay, maybe come out from behind there? The ornaments are really delicate.”

“Sure,” Bucky says, sounding more cheerful than he had in days. Or since he declared he killed the rat, Steve supposes. “Coming.”

Bucky inches back out from behind the tree with no casualties to the brand new ornaments, and then takes a seat on his haunches just in front of it. “This is so pretty,” Bucky sighs.

Steve sighs also. He can’t help it. It’s as if all the tension of the last few weeks is now trapped outside, at least for this one little moment. The tree is beautiful, gleaming like a monument to their triumph. Maybe he could work with the Wakandan embassy and help organize a PR campaign to integrate feline traditions into the established winter celebrations? Maybe T’Challa could help them find an old tradition of their own. In the meantime, Steve feels his fondness for Bucky returning, and confidence in his love blooming in his chest. He steps forward so that he could sit beside his lover, embrace him, kiss his face.

Then Bucky reaches up and slaps one of the ornaments right off the tree. It crashes into the wall, and shatters like an egg.

Steve freezes, his emotions skidding to a confused halt, not knowing which way to go. Bucky laughs and prowls forward on all fours to the little pile that the sad ornament made on the hardwood. “Oh man, they break so easy!” He exclaims, grinning foolishly. He is so delighted, and his laugh chimes like a bell. “That was amazing!”

“Bucky,” Steve starts, but his rage bundles up into a little ball and hides somewhere too deep in his throat for him to get out another word. Bucky looks up at the sound of his name, and grins wide, mischievous.

“It feels amazing to be able to break something,” he says, gleeful and undisturbed. “You should try it!”

Steve should try it? Steve should try to destroy the beautiful, perfect Christmas tree he brought home and decorated? Steve should tear down the achievement he made, trying to return things to normal? Trying to enjoy a tradition he and millions of others had been enjoying for centuries? _Try it?_

Steve wants to cry. Bucky is still sitting there, his grin wide and unconcerned, more relaxed than Steve had seen him in days. He reaches up and bats at another ornament. It isn’t at the same angle as the other one and holds on for longer, but eventually Bucky knocks it down and it clatters to the floor. “Aw,” Bucky says, and laughs. “That one got away. Just like Dr. _fucking_ Zola.”

That flips something inside Steve like a switch. “Oh no he doesn’t,” Steve argues, and kicks the ornament hard enough to break it against the baseboard. The popping sound it makes is unbelievably satisfying. “Not on my watch.”

“Damn right,” Bucky agrees, and reaches up to knock another one down, this time a blue orb from the top. “See if you can score on assist,” Bucky says, just when the ornament comes free of the branch. Steve bats at it with the flat of his hand and the ornament falls down through the other side of the tree. They both cheer when they hear it explode on the floor behind it.

All of a sudden Steve’s perfect tree is more like a perfect cake—something that seduces one to consume, rather than preserve. Bucky picks the ornaments, some harder to reach than others from a crouch, but with his amazing ability to control his short leaps and Steve on assist they finally wreck the entire thing. Then off comes the tinsel, which they play tug of war with, and eventually just shred it into tiny ribbons on top of a sea of gleaming glass. Bucky actually attacks the lights with his teeth, and that’s when Steve finally pulls him away, more worried the cat might electrocute himself than anything else. Of course, when Steve loops his arms around Bucky’s chest and pulls, Bucky still has the cable in his mouth. The entire tree comes crashing down in a shower of needles.

Bucky and Steve both dissolve into a fit of laughter on the couch (the floor is covered in broken glass, after all) and Steve winds up burying his face in a blanket to blot out tears that just won’t stop once he starts laughing hard enough.

“Christmas trees are amazing,” Bucky finally sighs, trying to get more comfortable on top of Steve. They stretch out along the couch, tangled up as they are under three different throw blankets. “You should get one every year.”

That just makes Steve laugh harder. “Don’t worry,” he says. “I think we will.”

The next day Steve brings home a mistletoe, thinking that could be a tradition he could share with Bucky as well. He leaves it on the counter in the evening and promptly forgets about it, until Bucky vomits it up on the bathroom floor.

He decides they can just stick with the tree for now.

* * *

Beautiful artwork of Bucky in his favorite chair by the incredible [ecairnsart](http://ecairnsart.tumblr.com/)! 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone! And welcome back! :) I've had this drabble for a while, but thought it would be fun to share. It was prompted from an anon ask on my Tumblr @resinonao3 so I thought I'd share, along with some artwork that's arrived since then!


End file.
